


Blood Dimmed Tide

by alchemyarchetype



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemyarchetype/pseuds/alchemyarchetype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke has lost one thing after another, year after year since Lothering. She's lost her father, her sister, her brother and now her mother. Everything has been taken away from her. She's been whittled away, piece by piece until there's nothing left but a raw and bloody core and it no longer seems worth the fight to keep going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Dimmed Tide

The duel that Hawke fought with the Arishok had been a thing of legends; a battle that would live in the tales with or without Varric around to tell it. All of the nobility had seen it, they had all been there when Hawke had thrown defiance in his teeth. They had been there when she had been bled and battered against the stone and had gotten up, time and time again. They had all seen her when she had stood over the bloody, broken body of the Arishok.

It was a story that wouldn’t die for a long, long time. And each time it was told it became bloodier and more magnificent.

                They had been there for the end, for the crowning moment of terror and triumph but they hadn’t all been there for Isabella’s betrayal and abandonment; her sudden, miraculous return. They hadn’t seen the look of delight and hurt and _fury_ in Hawke when Isabella had returned. For all she had fought for the Pirate, Varric had seen beneath the laughter and the jokes and the dismissal of Isabella’s betrayal.

                The nobles hadn’t been there for the Dark Foundry, for the look Varric had seen on Hawke’s face when her mother… for what was _left_ of her mother had turned to her and moved unsteadily towards her. They hadn’t seen the red ribbons of badly stitched together flesh or the blind, milky eyes; the awful, grey corpseflesh.

They hadn’t been there for Hawke weeping over the monstrous thing her mother’s body had been turned to. They hadn’t been there when she’d curled protectively over the corpse of the last of her family and had wept in soft, moaning little cries that had sounded like nothing less than some animal, dying in the streets in the deepest, darkest part of the night.

Varric had. He’d helped her stand, had helped her stumble tear-blind from the foundry and back to her home. He’d only heard later that her bastard of an uncle had been waiting there. He had been only too happy to throw blame and hatred at Hawke as she huddled in front of the fire.

Anders had told him about that, later. And Varric had made sure to pay a visit to the last living Amell. There had been some choice words exchanged. And some choice fists. 

Nonetheless, it had been a few weeks since Hawke had come down to the Hanged man.

                It was making Varric nervous.

                She’d lost so much, Maker she’d lost so much. She shouldn’t be alone now. She should be here, with Merril hanging around her like a cloak. Listening to Fenris grouse and grumble that he had better wine in his mansion. She should be talking with Anders about magical theory, warming into a debate that left Varric grasping for the one word in five that made _any_ sodding sense. Or cheating at Wicked Grace with Isabella, flirting and teasing.

                She should be with her family.

                Not holed away in a mansion that was, now surely to big and empty. It would be too much for her, he was sure, too much for anyone.

                Year after year, piece by piece Hawke was being whittled away and Varric didn’t know how to help.

After the deep roads, he had watched her pick herself up, fit the jagged pieces back together into some semblance of what she had been before and then stumble on.

It had taken three years for the light in Hawke’s eyes to come back, for her smile to mean something other than placation or reassurance.

                It had hurt him to see her, when she though he wasn’t looking, withdraw so deeply into herself that there was nothing left in her expression, no light, no life left in her eyes. She hadn’t spoken of it but in the most halting, fleeting moments when, for a wonder, it was just the two of them.

                The first time, when Hawke had been poking around the Viscount’s Estate looking for notes and work and books and Maker knew what else, he’d cleared his throat.

                “Hawke?”

                His voice had been hesitant, soft, slightly hoarse.

                Hawke hadn’t seemed to notice, “Mm-hmm?”

                “About Junior. Maker, I’m sorry.”

                She’d gasped softly as though he’d doused her suddenly in cold water. Her movements became stiff and jerky, nearly knocking the book off the table where she’d been perusing it casually. She straightened and turned away, looking at the door and he’d heard her carefully regulating her breathing.

                “Bartrand will pay for this, I swear,” he’d rushed on, wanting to reach out to her, wanting to soothe and comfort in any way she’d allow. She had moved away from him restlessly, trying to put distance between herself and the pain his words had brought back, her hand going to her hip, tapping out a rhythm there with tapered fingers.

                She’d stood very still for a long time and then nodded once, “I… I dream of him still… Of the look—of what I—never mind. Let’s get going.”

                It was as much as he ever got out of her. Even blind-drunk all she’d offer was a hard, empty grin filled with too many teeth.

                “Dead,” she had hissed at Varric over the small army of empty tankards, “my own brother at my own hand. Dead and dead and dead again. My fault. Couldn’t save him. Makes me wonder what the fuck I did to piss off the Maker. Makes me what the fuck I’m any good for. Can’t even save my own fuckin’ brother, my sister. Andraste’s Holy ass but I’d set the whole of Lothering to flame again if it meant having them back.”

                Beneath the thin patina of humor and then the careful resolve there was a seething, hissing monster. A rage demon, waiting to happen. It had terrified him. And he thought she’d known that, seen that fear in him. She’d seen it and, ever the protector, had shielded him from it afterwards.

                Varric hadn’t been able to help her through it. She held her fury close, tight as a fist and just as deadly. Sometimes he thought it was all that was driving her.

                But now, with her Mother’s ashes barely cool and the Arishok dead and Isabella gone again, now Varric was getting edgy.

                “Master Varric,” Bodahn said softly, coming up behind him. Varric kept his eyes on the fire.

                He hadn’t seen Hawke since the funeral. The Church had been filled to bursting; dozens of nobles in attendance to pay homage to the Champion’s loss, to curry favor with her. They might as well stayed away, Varric had thought; Hawke had been far, far gone.

                She’d come in with little fanfare, flanked by her friends, her staff slung over one shoulder in open defiance and her hair loose about her shoulders. Aveline had been on one side of her, Sebastian on the other and in both of them, Varric had seen unflinching loyalty. They could have been walking beside a queen and not looked any more protective, any prouder.

Aveline had glared out at the crowds, steely eyes resting lingeringly on the nobles who looked like the wanted to petition the Champion for one cause or another.

                Fenris had come in not long after. Like Hawke, he had not forgone his weapon and he shadowed his friend, seething and furious at the nobles around him. Merril, too, had stayed close, looking heartbroken and curious and concerned all at once.

                Anders had slipped in with the crowds, carefully concealing himself until he could sidle up to Hawke and take her hand.

                Varric had watched them form a protective wall around Hawke. Aveline’s use of sheer intimidation had kept many at bay; others could be turned aside by Sebastian’s holy gaze and soft words. The most determined found themselves staring into the cold, green eyes of a Fenris, his lyrium markings already starting to shimmer with blue light.

                No one, _no one_ would ask the Champion for her aid that day.

                But afterwards, Hawke had left and had locked herself in her manor and had left specific orders with Bodahn.

                “I’m sorry, messere,” Bodahn had said when Varric had come to call, a few days after the funeral when Hawke still hadn’t made an appearance at the Hanged Man, “she said… she said that no one is permitted.”

                Even Anders hadn’t seen her after that first night.

                And what Anders had told Varric about it, about Hawke’s sudden, white-hot rage frightened him badly.

                “She said that? That the Templars were right? To _you_?” Varric had demanded when Anders had finally told him.

                Anders had nodded, “What do you expect?” the apostate had asked grimly, “Her talents are thrown into her face again and again… even her own friends--” he had shot a furious look at Fenris then, “--constantly question what she is. What she can do.”

                “If she needs someone to blame…” Aveline had started, straightening her shoulders as though she was going to ward off a blow. Anders cut her off ruthlessly.

                “Don’t bother,” he had snapped, “I already offered myself and it…” he face softened, lost the furious cast, became sad and tired, “it didn’t help.”

                It had been weeks since then. Weeks since any of them had seen her. They has all knocked at her door and they had all been met by Bodahn who had looked more and more strained as he turned them away. Finally Fenris started muttering darkly about breaking in.

                Varric shook off the thoughts and turned away from the fire, looking at the other dwarf.

                Bodahn was ringing his hands, looking practically ill in his nervousness, “Forgive me for disturbing you here, Master Varric…”

                “It’s not a trouble, Bodahn,” Varric said, trying for a smile and unable to manage, “What can I do for you?”

                “Well… It’s… it’s Mistress Hawke,” he said softly, “I know she said no visitors—and that hasn’t changed—but…”

                “Spit it out, dwarf,” Fenris snapped, rolling forward in sudden, crackling temper.

 Varric stopped the elf with a half-raised arm and felt, more than saw, him turn away again. Fenris, for all his fury and all his moody, sharp-edged nature was intensely fond of Hawke and, Varric knew, as worried as he was. He thought they all might be.

                “She hasn’t eaten,” Bodahn said in a rush, “She _won’t_ eat. She’s not sleeping—she…  said some things…” he swallowed, glancing at the group that had gathered close. Only Aveline and Sebastian were missing. Well. And Isabella, of course. Bodahn took a breath and said, “She keeps talking about… about being Tranquil--”

                Varric’s stomach lurched and Anders hissed out a sharp breath.

                “Tranquil,” Fenris said, sounding gutted, “She’s… what thinking about--?”

                “She _can’t_!” Marril said, sounding as horrified as Varric felt.

                “I don’t know, messere,” Bodahn said desperately, wringing his hands, “I don’t know. That’s just the problem. Half of what she says isn’t for me. She keeps telling me take me and my boy Sandal here, give her the manor for a few nights to be alone… but…” The dwarf shook his head, “I’ll not leave her alone. I have Olana watching over her now. She’s been such a good lass, trying to get the lady to eat by making all her favorites but—but--”

                Next to him, Varric could feel Anders shaking. Fenris looked pale and sick and terrified.

                “I’ll go talk to her,” Varric said, standing, “Stay here, Bodahn.”

                “I’m coming with,” Anders and Merril said, both coming to their feet in a rush. 

                “She can’t be allowed to follow through with this foolishness,” Fenris said. His voice was low and carefully restrained. Varric heard something very much like desperation in it.

                “No,” Varric snapped, “none of you are coming. You’re staying here until I get back. The last thing Hawke needs right now is a whole crowd of well-meaning fools.”

                “Varric, you can’t possibly think--” Anders started.

                “I think,” Varric said, “that I’ve known her longest. I think that you all need to sit your asses down, order another round and stay _put_.”

                “I’d like to come,” Merril said softly. Her green eyes were enormous, swimming with tears.

                “Daisy--”

                “I won’t come in,” she hurried on, “but… but if she needs something…”

                Varric looked from face to another, from Merril who looked like she was going to break into a hundred pieces, to Anders and Fenris who both looked like they would fight him tooth and nail to go to Hawke, to convince her to not do whatever madness she was planning on. Varric sighed. He didn’t have the time for a fight right now. Or the patience.  

                “Fine,” he said, “but only to her door. Better yet, you can keep an eye on everyone, Broody. Keep them in your mansion. It’s close and out of the way and you won’t be spotted by an overeager Templar. Come on.”

                They made their way to High Town, clustered around Varric and Bodahn like children. When they got to Hawke’s mansion, Varric sent them all away and watched them cross the courtyard to Fenris’s home. Bodahn became an unofficial herder, keeping them moving as they paused and looked over their shoulders. Concern rested on each of them, heavy and heartbreaking and _good_.

                “Ah, Hawke,” Varric muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck. He shook his head a little and opened the door without knocking.

                He saw Olana making a trip into the kitchen with a fully laden and untouched tray of food. The little elf paused when she saw him, concern in her wide, expressive eyes. She nodded back the way she’d come.

                “Through there,” she whispered and then disappeared into the kitchen.

                 Varric walked into the library. The drapes were all drawn and Hawke was nestled deep into her favorite chair, dragged close to the fire. Her Mabari was at her feet making soft, plaintive noises that were not _quite_ whines.

                There was a small crowd of bottles around Hawke’s ankles. He spotted dark, smoky bottles of Antivan wine, worth more than the whole of the Hanged Man’s stock; they stood next to flasks of cheap rotgut and moonshine.

                All empty.

                Save the one that was still hanging from her hand. It was another bottle of wine, freshly opened and scenting the air with sweet, dry fruit.

                “Hawke.”

                She turned her eyes from the fire after a moment and stared at him in silence. There was no recognition there, no urgency or movement of any type. She blinked her eyes slowly at him, registering his presence only as a wry tilt of her mouth.

                “Varric,” she finally said, carefully enunciating the word. There was still nothing in her face and her voice sounded far away and foggy. She tilted her head a little to the side, staring right through him. She said it again, sounding like she was searching for something to connect to that word, “Varric.”

                She looked at him, narrowing her eyes a little and tapping the bottle against the arm of her chair. Her breathing hitched and she swallowed, her hand tightening around the neck of the bottle in her hand.

                “Varric?”

                A question this time, almost a plea.

                “I’m here, Hawke,” he muttered, coming across the dim room and towards the fire. It was the only source of light, throwing flickering, red-yellow flames over her face. She looked thin; pale… she looked, if he was to be totally honest with himself, like a corpse. Something like wan relief fluttered across her features.

                “Ah,” she said, tipping her chin up to look at him through her lashes, “real this time, are you?”

                Varric’s feet stuttered for a moment as the import of those words cleaved through his mind.

                “How many…?”

                “More’n I care to count,” Hawke said, her eyes drifting aimlessly back to the fire, “More’n I can remember I guess. It’s not always you. Sometimes it’s Fenris or Anders or Merril… Or Bethany or Carver. Or Mother.”

                Her voice sounded raw, hoarse, as though she’d spent the night weeping. Or screaming. 

                “It’s funny,” she said, “Never had much of an issue with demons or spirits or the like before I came here.”

                Varric pulled a chair closer to Hawke. The sound of the wood scraping against the stone made her look over at him for a moment.

                “I’ve been reading a lot about Kirkwall,” she sighed, “it’s a bad place, Varric. I’m starting to think that Bethy had the right of it.” She returned her gaze to the fire.

                “The right of it?” Varric asked. He kept his voice pitched carefully low and took the bottle when Hawke offered it. She did so with a sort of automatic response to him being near. Her arm moved stiffly but she released the neck of the bottle when Varric took it and nodded a little when he took a quick swallow.

                “Dying,” she clarified softly. She looked away again, back to the fire that seemed to be the only thing that could hold her attention, “Dying before all of this. Before having to see—to _do_ so many things. Ah, void take me but I’d take it all back now. Just throw myself into the ocean. Maybe then the blighted _Andraste_ and her blighted _Maker_ would be appeased.”

                She spat the words out, vicious and poison. Varric stashed the nearly full bottle of wine on the other side of his chair, away from Hawke and away from her gaze. She didn’t seem to notice its absence.

                Varric watched her, wanting to tell her how much that would break _him_ , that she never would have brought together her strange, broken little family. He wanted to tell her what it would have meant if had never gotten the chance to meet her… but nothing sounded right in his head.

                “Even if you were the one to take on the Ogre,” he said instead, “Bethany and Carver would still be dead.”

                “Then what’s the _point_?” she whispered, “What’s the point of all of it? Any of it? I’ve given _everything_ I have. I’ve given so much blood and pain and—I just— I’m bleeding into ashes and expecting trees and I can’t—I _can’t_ anymore.”

                She reached up and covered her eyes with the palm of her hand and let out a dry, coughing little sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.

                “Champion of Kirkwall,” she muttered, “and I’d set this whole city on fire if it meant having them back.” A shudder ran through her and she dropped her head. Her eyes landed on Varric and there was something feverish and mad there, “And they know it too.”

                “Who?”

                She gestured her hand to her temple with a disgusted noise, “Them. The demons, the spirits. Whatever they are.”

                Varric swallowed.

                “Hawke, you’re not seriously listening to them, are you?” Varric heard how hoarse his voice had gone, heard the raw terror there and could do nothing about it.

                “Not usually,” she replied idly, “only the ones that look like Mother. Just to… just to hear her v-voice again.”

                She swallowed hard and tipped her head back, blinking her eyes furiously.

                “Hawke,” Varric reached out and laid a hand on her wrist. She closed her eyes and bit back a sob. Tears slipped from beneath her eyelids, tracking gold and orange in the firelight. She looked exhausted, worn thin and threadbare.

                Varric had walked into the deep roads, faced the dark spawn and ancient things that should have stayed in myth and fairy tales. He’d been betrayed by his brother and forced to see what the madness had done to him. He’d seen fire and death and destruction and had never wavered, never felt truly frightened.

                Hawke though, being unmade in front of his eyes, terrified him as nothing else had.

                “I’m forgetting her already. Just like I’m forgetting Carver and Bethany and Father. I can’t do this anymore, Varric. Everyone keeps asking and asking and I just… There’s nothing _left_.”

                Varric stood and caught Hawke as her head dropped into her hands. He wrapped his arms around her, holding too tight against him as though he could will the pain and exhaustion out of her. She curled over herself, her spine bowed and her head low. She didn’t really weep. The noises she made were choked and muffled and raw; an animal caught and dying in a trap. It ripped at him to feel her shaking, to feel her fever-hot skin beneath his hands and to know that nothing he could do or say would help.

                That didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

                “Hawke,” he whispered furiously into her ear, “Hawke, you listen, you listen to me now. You’ve lost… you’ve lost so much and you’ve had to do so much and so much has been asked of you. But please… _please_. I need… We need you. Bethany and Carver and Leandra were your family and, _Maker_ , I’m sorry they’re gone. I’d do anything to bring them all back. You have us, Aveline and Anders and Isabella and Fenris and Merril and even Sebastian. We are your family. _All_ of us. We won’t leave you. You give so much of yourself, to the city, to us, to all of Kirkwall. Let us help you. We’re here for you, Hawke. We are. I promise.”

                Her shaking was getting worse as he spoke but her arms came around him in a desperate, clutching grip. He squeezed her back, let her shake and gasp and wished he could do more for her.

                Eventually she pulled back, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes and sniffling. She looked so young then that Varric felt his heart break all over again.

                “Tell you what, Hawke,” he said, finding his own voice thick with tears, “I can’t promise I won’t let Kirkwall take more from you, I don’t think anyone could promise that, but I swear on the Maker and on the Ancestors and on Andraste’s holy tits--” this drew a low, gurgling laugh from Hawke that Varric _thrilled_ to hear. “—that I will be there for every bloody step. Whatever path you take, I’ll be right beside you.”

                She looked at him with shining, bloodshot eyes that burned like stars in her pale face.

                She took a deep, stuttering breath. She looked at him, _studied_ him really. It was a long, careful look that made Varric feel as though he was being carefully locked into place. As though by remembering him at this moment, like this, she could keep him with her.

                Then she nodded once.

                “I’ll make you a promise too then,” she said softly. Her voice was raw and gravelly and pure steel.

                “Hawke—you don’t have to--”

                “I do. I have to. I won’t let Kirkwall take any of you from me. Not a single one. I’ll rip this place apart, every board, every plank, every stone, and set it to the torch myself before I lose anything else.”

                Her eyes burned fervent and terrible and dangerously vital. Varric took a breath, wondering if anyone knew how deadly their Champion was, how ruthless. Beneath all the charms and smiles and all the jokes and placation there was a core of her that had been forged into something harder than steel, harder than diamond and colder, more terrible than anything they could have found in the deep roads.

                There was a will in her, branded deep in her that was as certain as death. It was a force of nature that lived at the Hawke’s center. Pushed far enough, Varric didn’t doubt for a moment she’d make good on her word.

                “I believe you, Hawke,” Varric said, “but I won’t let it come to that.”


End file.
